Victor Emmanuel II of Italy

“ Let our American sympathizers with Victor Emmanuel and the unity of Italy look at modern society as it is, and they can hardly fail to see that everything is unsettled, unmoored, and floating; that men's minds are everywhere shaken, agitated by doubt and uncertainty; that no principle, no institution, is too venerable or too sacred to be attacked, no truth is too well established to be questioned, and no government or authority too legitimate or too beneficent to be conspired against. ”

“ No doubt there is a considerable amount of personal sympathy for the King—and he deserves it—for it must never be forgotten that, whereas all other Italian patriots—even when we include amongst them the pure and glorious name of Joseph Garibaldi—only played their lives, Victor Emmanuel threw a crown and sceptre on the board, and dared to stake the Royal condition of his family, that he might throw for the independence of Italy. This was the movement of a great and magnanimous heart. People say that his head is not equal to his heart ”

“ King Victor Emmanuel is a man of integrity, of intelligence, and of devotion to the best interests of his country as he understands these interests to be. If they might be better served by a more democratic form of government, it is hardly to be asked or expected that such a view should present itself to an hereditary monarch. Among the most liberal element there are not wanting men who believe that for the immediate future the present form of government is the most feasible. In their conviction Italy is by no means prepared to be a republic. ”

“ After death, too, he must remain at Rome, notwithstanding the wishes of all his kindred and of his son and successor. The new king expressed to a deputation of the municipality of Turin with what pain he made the sacrifice which policy required. The policy of the revolutionary faction would not allow Victor Emmanuel to have his last resting-place with his ancestors at the Superga. Policy forbade that death even should liberate him who was called the liberator of Italy. Policy hoped to perpetuate usurpation, by holding the usurper in the usurped capital. ”

“ This demand, though strenuously pressed in later negotiations, Victor Emmanuel unconditionally refused. He had to endure for a while the presence of Austrian troops in his kingdom, and to furnish an indemnity which fell heavily on so small a State; but the liberties of his people remained intact, and the pledge given by his father inviolate. Amid the ruin of all hopes and the bankruptcy of all other royal reputations throughout Italy, there proved to be one man, one government, in which the Italian people could trust. ”

“ Even after the first French defeats the chivalrous king, in spite of the advice of his more prudent councillors, wished to go to the rescue, and asked Thiers, the French representative who was imploring him for help, if with 100,000 Italian troops France could be saved, but Thiers could give no such undertaking and Italy remained neutral. On the 20th of September 1870, the French troops having been withdrawn, the Italian army entered Rome, and on the 2nd of July 1871 Victor Emmanuel made his solemn entry into the Eternal City, which then became the capital of Italy. ”

“ The Roman question yet remained unsolved, for Napoleon, although he had assisted Piedmont in 1859 and had reluctantly consented to the annexation of the central and southern provinces, and of part of the Papal States, would not permit Rome to be occupied, and maintained a French garrison there to protect the pope. When war with Prussia appeared imminent he tried to obtain Italian assistance, and Victor Emmanuel was very anxious to fly to the assistance of the man who had helped him to expel the Austrians from Italy, but he could not do so unless Napoleon gave him a free hand in Rome. ”

“ It is pleasant to turn from a country, even though it be one with which all our sympathies are bound up by community of language, of religion, of race, but upon which rests so direful a stain, to another which is shaking off chains as heavy as those which ever oppressed the poor negro’s limbs. It is something to have lived to see the independence of Italy all but consummated, and to feel that, if life be spared but a short while longer, the consummation will be achieved. Victor Emmanuel has now taken possession of Southern Italy. ”

“ Italy was the cradle of his race, and he too wished to create, if not a King of Rome, a federation of small States ruled by princes of his own blood. The public rejoicings at Florence, Parma, Modena, and Bologna, and the ardent expression of the populace at such centres for union with Sardinia, made the Emperor wince, and showed him that it was impossible, even with French bayonets, to crush the aspirations of a nation. Napoleon met Francis Joseph at Villafranca, and the preliminaries of peace were arranged on July 11 in a high-handed fashion, and without even the presence of Victor Emmanuel. ”

“ And, finally, the new government of Victor Emmanuel, for a time at least, was caught in the same current, infected with the same mania for building that seems to exhale from the very soil of the Eternal City. As the popes had not become masters of Rome without feeling impelled to rebuild it in their passion to rule over the world, so young Italy, "yielding to the hereditary madness of universal domination, had in its turn sought to make the city larger than any other, erecting whole districts for people who never came." ”

“ Victor Emmanuel grieved bitterly, like a true, warm-hearted father for the fate of his misguided but generous-hearted sons. ... To the Emperor of the French he wrote an ardent appeal begging him to break with the Clericals and put himself at the head of the Liberal party in Europe, at the same time warning him that the old feeling of gratitude towards the French in Italy had quite disappeared. 'The late events have suffocated every remembrance of gratitude in the heart of Italy. It is no longer in the power of the Government to maintain the alliance with France. ”

“ The love and the gratitude of Italy have been lavished without stint on the memory of its first sovereign, who served his nation with qualities of so homely a type, and in whose life there was so much that needed pardon. The colder judgment of a later time will hardly contest the title of Victor Emmanuel to be ranked among those few men without whom Italian union would not have been achieved for another generation. ”

“ In these two men are [627] personified one of the greatest epochs of history, an epoch fertile in the most glorious events which can take place in a nation. It is the epoch of a free state and a risen nation. And these two men were the artificers of the prodigious event—Pius IX by the religious impulse given to the Italian revolution in its first phases; Victor Emmanuel by having constituted himself the champion of independence of unity and of the liberty of Italy. ”

“ It was necessary, as Charles Albert had seen, that the king who was to carry out the destinies of Italy should be trusted. Victor Emmanuel came to the throne with few advantages; he was unpopular, his private friends were said to be reactionaries, his brusque manners offended most people. He had practically no advisers in these critical moments, but the moral courage with which he refused the Austrian offers of lenient terms if he would repudiate the Statute and his father's word, won for him the nation's trust, which he never lost. ”

“ Victor Emmanuel, the young King of Sardinia, had won no such popularity, suffering from the prejudice against his family, the House of Savoy, and against his wife, an Austrian by birth. He came to the throne at a dark time, succeeding to a royal inheritance of {199} ruin and misery. The army had been disgraced, and the exchequer was empty. He had the dignity of a king and remarkable boldness, but it would have been hard for him to have guided Italy without his adviser and friend, the Count Cavour. ”

“ The young king rallied around him the ablest and most patriotic men he could find, including D'Azeglio, who soon became his prime minister; and it was from this nobleman's high character, varied abilities, unshaken loyalty to his sovereign, and ardent devotion to the Italian cause, that Victor Emmanuel was enabled to preserve order and law on the one hand and Italian liberties on the other. All Italy, as well as Piedmont, had confidence in the integrity and patriotism of the king, and in the wisdom of his prime minister, who upheld the liberties they had sworn to defend. ”

“ If Italy owes the final success to the superior capabilities of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour, and to the agitating power of the General of the Thousand, it is well not to forget the struggles sustained for years by gentlemen whose example did so much to raise partisans among the humble. These aristocrats, passionate for liberty, have (like our own of the eighteenth century) done more for the people than the people itself. ”

“ There are diverse judgments on the very diverse merits of the master-builders of the Italian kingdom; some admire most Mazzini, the indefatigable conspirator, the dreamy idealist, the nobly fanatical republican; others, Garibaldi, the man after Petrarch's heart, the rival of Roland or the Cid; others, Victor Emmanuel, the honourable, bold, shrewd, resolute king; but all agree that Cavour's brilliant diplomacy entitles him to rank as one of the world's great statesmen, and that his work was indispensable to the establishment of the Italian kingdom. ”

“ Not giving them time to recover, Garibaldi followed to the mainland, defeated them again, and was master of all Southern Italy. Meanwhile Victor Emmanuel, marching his troops southward, seized what was left of the States of the Church. The two conquerors met midway in Italy, and Garibaldi, grasping his sovereign by the hand, saluted him as King at last of a united Italy. Only Rome and Venice remained outside the pale, Rome protected by being in actual possession of the Pope, and, since France was still Catholic, guarded by French troops from the eager Italians. ”

“ There was to be a consolidation of the Italian kingdoms "under the honorary Presidency of the Pope"—whatever that meant—and a "general amnesty" was declared. It was with sullen rage that the disappointed patriots saw Nice and Savoy handed over to France, and Rome garrisoned with French troops, while a French emperor was posing as the liberator of an Italy which was not liberated! But although the mills of the gods were moving slowly, they were going to grind exceeding fine. Victor Emmanuel and a regenerated Italy were not far off, and for Germany there was at hand a new era. ”

“ On the 18th of February the first Italian parliament met at Turin, and Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed king of Italy. The new kingdom was recognized by Great Britain within a fortnight, by France three months later, and subsequently by other powers. It included the whole peninsula except Venetia and Rome, and these the government and the nation were determined to annex sooner or later.
There were, however, other serious problems calling for immediate attention. The country had to be built up and converted from an agglomeration of scattered medieval principalities into a unified modern nation. ”

“ Through evil and good report, kinglike and manfully did he uphold the constitution to which he had sworn, till he met his reward in the wondrous confidence and enthusiasm of which he is now the object.
It is not a sudden impulse, this love of the Italians for Victor Emmanuel. On the contrary, when he mounted the throne, so great was the universal hatred for kings, generated by the perfidy of their own princes, that few reposed [333] belief in his assurances. It was only when he was seen firmly contending with Rome against her encroachments and intolerance ”

“ There is no man in Italy—we might say in Europe—who can do that now. Napoleon is at ease, and snubs the Italian Government with little ceremony. For not only has Garibaldi been removed from the scene, but the prestige of Victor Emmanuel has at the same time received a serious blow. Aspromonte will never be forgotten—in many quarters never forgiven. Rattazzi has, in consequence, been ignominiously overthrown; and in Southern Italy the shooting of the great national hero has given increased force to the discontent with the King’s Government. ”

“ After the suppression of the Italian Revolution, by Austria, in 1849, and the restoration of Austrian power in Italy, Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, who had headed the movement for Italian independence and had been defeated, abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel. The new King, as Victor Emmanuel II, succeeded to the throne March 23, 1849, the day of his father's defeat at Novara. ”

“ It is a great loss, but perhaps some arrangement may be entered into with the new Italian power, which, after all, will enable the Holy Father still to reside at Rome, and exercise independently his functions as the spiritual chief of Christendom. Italy has more need of the pope then the pope has of Italy, and Victor Emmanuel, at worst, cannot be worse than were the Pagan and Arian Caesars. No Catholic can ever despair of the church. At present the temporal, to all human ken, seems to have triumphed over the spiritual, and politics to have carried it over religion. ”